Saturday, 29 December 2012

Tim Cook, in his first year as CEO of Apple after the late Steve Jobs, earned $1.4 million in salary this year, along with $2.8 million in bonuses. This is significantly less than his 2011 earnings of $378 million.

According to Reuters, Cook's actual salary went up by some $900,000, but this year he did not receive any Apple stock, which accounts for the large disparity. In 2011, Cook received some $376.2 million in long-term stock awards.

Almost all of Cook's stock bonuses will be awarded in two large chunks, the first of which will vest in 2016, the second in 2021. This will act as an impetus for Cook to perform well as head of Apple in the meanwhile, as the value of the bonuses will depend on how high the stock is in 2016 and 2021.

Amazon has gotten pretty aggressive with the price cuts for Windows Phone 8 handsets. About a month ago, they cut the price of two WP8 flagships, the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC Windows Phone 8X, and now they've cut them again.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is now $40 with a two-year contract from AT&T (used to be $60), if you get it through the Amazon Wireless portal. Both the black and white versions are available. The Lumia 820 is free with two-year contract at Amazon Wireless too, has been for over a month.

The latest generation of Samsung devices is already enjoying the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update. Samsung is working hard to update the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note for quite some time and as it seems the Note update is just around the corner.